So I decided to spend it in a place that was a bit more representative of the rest of the country than Beijing. I went back to PingQuan. This was the farming town where Very went during Chinese New Year.

This is the diary of my three weeks there. Three weeks of Chinese hospitality, linguistic isolation, and beautifully cool weather.

Very and I went camping on the Great Wall again this weekend. The only difference was that we didn't actually sleep on the wall this time. Instead we and our 8 friends slept on about 10 meters of ridgeline.

Luckily we all survived unscathed. This is our story. (with pictures!)

I've been in China for six months now. I know this because my first visa expired and I had to get a new one (a shockingly painless process in this land of bureaucracy). I've got until September 8th to get out of the country or get a new visa via some crooked agent who knows a guy that knows a guy or something like that. In all likelihood I'll leave in July like I've planned to all along. But until then there are adventures to be had...

But the real news is that I got a yinzhang! A yinzhang is one of those spiffy name stamps that you see on calligraphy works or letters or anything else that can use a spiffy looking signature. See it inside and take the related poll!

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